Video: Moby and Wayne Coyne release acoustic teaser video for their collaborative single "The Perfect Life"

Electronic musician Moby and Oklahoma City rocker Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips today released an acoustic version of their collaborative single “The Perfect Life” that serves as a trailer to the upcoming official video.

“A few weeks ago Wayne and I spent the day making a video for ‘The Perfect Life’. Then at the end of the day we broke out an acoustic guitar and gathered all of the extras on a rooftop overlooking L.A and sang an unrehearsed, impromptu version of the song. Please keep in mind we had no idea what we were doing,” Moby says in a statement.

The official video will premiere on Sept. 3, with more details to be announced. (The acoustic video includes a rather scantily clad woman dressed in only pasties and feathers, which isn’t so bad when one considers the nudity level of some of the Lips’ recent vids. Still, just passing along that information here as some may consider it NSFW.)

The much-anticipated video for the “The Perfect Life” was shot in Los Angelese with Coyne and Moby dressed as mariachis. (Check out the photo above from Moby’s Facebook.) The casting call was posted on Moby’s Facebook and included some very specific extras: “S&M gimp rhythmic gymnast,” “eight roller-skating ghosts,” “12 goth choir members,” “2 obese bearded bikers in red speedos,”"a punk rock brass band” and “a drunk king: guy with beard age 35-50.”

“The Perfect Life” is billed as an epic electronic soul track, and it will be featured on Moby’s upcoming collaborations album, “Innocents,” due out Sept. 30. The acoustic version is pretty, summery and uplifting.

“Wayne Coyne and I ended up doing a duet on ‘The Perfect Life’: we sing the choruses together, and then go back and forth on the verses. Wayne and I first met in 1995, when The Flaming Lips and I were both opening up for a Red Hot Chili Peppers’ European tour. We became friends, shared a dressing room and the same bad craft services, and watched the Chili Peppers from the side of the stage. I thought of Wayne for this song because The Flaming Lips have evolved in this very open, celebratory band when they play live, and that was the perfect vibe for what I was imagining for ‘The Perfect Life.’ I texted Wayne and said, ‘Hey, I have a song – want to sing on it?’ Thirty seconds later, he texted me back: ‘Yes, send it to me, it will be great,” Moby says in a statement.

“Innocents” is a record of firsts for the multiplatinum Moby. It’s the first time in his career he worked with an outside producer, friend Mark “Spike” Stent, whose résumé includes Madonna, U2, Muse, Björk, and Massive Attack. In addition, this is the first time Moby has concentrated an entire album on collaborations, which along with Coyne, include alt-rock legend Mark Lanegan, Cold Specks, Skylar Grey (best known for co-writing and performing on Eminem and Rihanna’s “Love The Way You Lie”), indie-folk singer Damien Jurado, and Inyang Bassey, who was the vocalist on “The Right Thing” from Moby’s 2011 album “Destroyed.”

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by Brandy McDonnell

Entertainment Reporter

Brandy McDonnell, also known by her initials BAM, writes stories and reviews on movies, music, the arts and other aspects of entertainment. She is NewsOK’s top blogger: Her 4-year-old entertainment news blog, BAM’s Blog, has notched more than 1...